Busan to operate S. Korea's first AI-based cinematographer and studio

By Park Sae-jin Posted : September 18, 2017, 15:29 Updated : September 18, 2017, 15:29

[Courtesy of Korean Tourism Organization]


For the first time in South Korea, Busan, a southern port city famous for its prestigious annual "Busan International Film Festival", will adopt a film-shooting AI to gain competitiveness in the global cinematographic industry. The move is expected to bring a big change in the country's filming industry.

AI technology is now adopted everywhere, but the filming industry has yet to make a full use of such a modern technology. Humans are still the main workforce in filming because robots cannot catch up the sense of human beings and their ability to make snap judgment in changing environments.

"The technology is totally new from conventional ones. A new studio block will be built to house the AI-based cinema technology," said Kim Do-hyun, a team manager at Busan's Video Contents Management Team. "Once the studio is finished, South Korean filmmakers no longer have to fly overseas to use the AI technology." Kim added that currently, the only studio in Asia is being operated in China. 

Busan will spend some six billion won (5.3 million US dollars) from state and city funds on developing "Cinema Robotics" inside a complex of cinema studios in the city to run an AI-embedded studio by 2020.

"By adding Cinema Robotics to Asia's first visualization-based digital studio, we have established a system capable of creating a film with extreme reality," the city official said. Busan's Cinema Studios is the result of a 14 billion won project and it includes a virtual special filming studio and a digital 3D production center.

Cinema Robotics is a video technology that controls robot arms in a filming process. The technology was used in filming many Hollywood blockbuster films such as "Gravity" and "Wonder Woman" which required dynamic camera works and heavy post-editing.

With AI technology, filmmakers can minimize errors in editing and reduce the time taken in production. Busan officials said that up to 30 percent of an average production cost will be saved.

 
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